The temps are falling, and we’re all nesting -- it’s as good a time as any to think about home improvement.  We’re talking cleaning, curating and cultivating your way to creating the greatest chi (as in Feng Shui) possible for your living quarters, however modest they may be.  Here, a few of our favorite options for buying your way into domestic bliss: 

Banksy Artwork (Free)
Newsflash: just because you’re not Brangelina, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a little wall adornment courtesy of Banksy, the London-based graffito/artist notorious (and anonymous) the world over.  In true Bansky-style, the renowned legal-offender is offering free downloadable images of his iconic, often politically-charged silhouetted street installations for those who can’t afford to buy his art (like Pitt, or Aguilera, have).  Not to mention, we love the site’s Serving Suggestion: ‘Print looks best when done on gloss paper, using the company printer ink when everyone else is at lunch.’

Fishs Eddy Alice In Wonderland Dishware ($4.50 and up)
Just this month, Fishs Eddy added another covetable classic to its dishware collection, which in the past has included Pantone plates and Democrat or Republican mugs and glasses.  This season their standard ceramics are adorned with beautiful, surrealist scenes straight out of Alice in Wonderland.  Perfect for a mad tea party, or merely impressing your friends.

Adam Frank’s Lumen Oil Lamp ($48)
Designer Adam Frank’s Lumen Oil Lamps, an extension of his ‘experiments in light and interactivity,’ are irresistible thanks to both the simplicity of their design – the projection of silhouettes via acid-etched stainless steel and a flame – and the impressive interaction between a singular shadow projector and the space it occupies.  Add an inexpensive Lumen lamp to any cosmopolitan apartment and it’ll do wonders for its life-force.
Also available at refinery29.com 

Wilhelm Wagenfeld Lamp
Trends in design are consistently moving towards increasingly modern, minimal aesthetics.  Thus, what better time to revisit Bauhaus – the early-20^th-century German design movement that influenced contemporary design, and modernist architecture.  Keeping with this tradition, we recommend Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s table lamp (1924).  Absolutely timeless, and more aesthetically advanced than anything Ikea is knocking off today. 
Looking for more Bauhaus? Don't miss these Dieter Rams door handles, bauhaus-fittings.com

Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System (Prices range)
Designed by Dieter Rams in the early ‘60s, this Vitsoe shelving system is as sleek and sound as storage gets.  The library-esque shelves are customizable – from a single CD rack to 5,000 filing cabinets with all the desk space and drawers you can fit (and afford) – and are reportedly adaptable to nearly any type of wall.  They’re an essential in translating the safekeeping of objects into an art form.
Also available at mossonline.com
(Another option, if you can’t foot the bill for the new Vitsoe, is used library shelving -- at booksforlibraries.com.)

P* Cell Phone Handset From Hulger ($80)
The debate surrounding the long-term effects of cell phone usage is far from settled.  Yet, considering recent news reports of a British scientist likening cell phones’ potential widespread harm to that of cigarettes, it’s not exactly a pretty picture.  All the more reason it’s about time you invested in that P* Cell Phone Handset from Hulger (formerly Pokia – what it was called before Nokia decided to flex its legal muscle).  Not only does the handset look cool (as in old school), it may save you from a brain tumor.  At around $80 a pop, it’s well worth the risk.  (Note: some of LG and Motorola’s latest cell phones – U8830 and Razr V3 -require adaptors).
Also available at momastore.org 

Paula Hayes Terrariums ($8,500-$18,000)
Talk about creating a Zen environment: Contemporary landscape artist Paula Hayes’ intricately rendered terrariums are awe-inspiring, to say the least.  Gorgeous, and painstakingly constructed, Hayes’ terrariums will no doubt offer any room a delicate sense of serenity.  (For those on a significantly tighter budget, we recommend Brookstone’s EcoSphere, $65 and up).
brookstone.com

~Alisa Gould-Simon